[22] Included in "Parables from Nature." By Mrs. Alfred Gatty. Complete edition. Bell and Sons.
For two years after Mother's death, Julie shared the work of editing the Magazine with me, and then she gave it up, as we were not living together, and so found the plan rather inconvenient; also the task of reading MSS. and writing business letters wasted time which she could spend better on her own stories.
At the end of the year 1873, she brought out a book, "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," consisting of five stories, three of which—"Timothy's Shoes," "Benjy in Beastland," and "The Peace Egg,"—had already been published in Aunt Judy's Magazine, whilst "Old Father Christmas" had appeared in Little Folks; but the first tale of "Lob" was specially written for the volume.[23]
[23] Letter, August 10, 1873.
The character of McAlister in this story is a Scotchman of the Scotch, and, chiefly in consequence of this fact, the book was dedicated to James Boyn McCombie, an uncle of Major Ewing, who always showed a most kind and helpful interest in my sister's literary work.
He died a few weeks before she did, much to her sorrow, but the Dedication remained when the story came out in a separate form, illustrated by Mr. Caldecott. The incident which makes the tale specially appropriate to be dedicated to so true and unobtrusive a philanthropist as Mr. McCombie was known to be, is the Highlander's burning anxiety to rescue John Broom from his vagrant career.
"Lob" contains some of Julie's brightest flashes of humour, and ends happily, but in it, as in many of her tales, "the dusky strand of death" appears, inwoven with, and thereby heightening, the joys of love and life. It is a curious fact that, though her power of describing death-bed scenes was so vivid, I believe she never saw any one die; and I will venture to say that her description of McAlister's last hours surpasses in truth and power the end of Leonard's "Short Life"; the extinction of the line of "Old Standards" in Daddy Darwin; the unseen call that led Jan's Schoolmaster away; and will even bear comparison with Jackanapes' departure through the Grave to that "other side" where "the Trumpets sounded for him."
In order to appreciate the end, it is almost necessary, perhaps, to have followed John Broom, the ne'er-do-weel lad, and McAlister, the finest man in his regiment, through the scenes which drew them together, and to read how the soldier, who might and ought to have been a "sairgent," tried to turn the boy back from pursuing the downward path along which he himself had taken too many steps; and then learn how the vagrant's grateful love and agility enabled him to awaken the sleeping sentinel at his post, and save "the old soldier's honour."
John Broom remained by his friend, whose painful fits of coughing, and of gasping for breath, were varied by intervals of seeming stupor. When a candle had been brought in and placed near the bed, the Highlander roused himself and asked:
"Is there a Bible on yon table? Could ye read a bit to me, laddie?"